«Molodist» started in 1970 at the Karpenko-Kariy Kyiv Institute of Theatrical Arts as a 2-day festival where 33 students` films were presented. Now this young shoot turned into the week-long holiday of  an international scale and the amount of films presented is now increased 100 times (this year  nearly 300 films are to be shown)!

The festival that is built on this sort of concept does not have any chance to become old. That is probably the reason of its name: "Molodist" means "youth" in Ukrainian.

From the very beginning the festival was not only for ukrainian partisipants, moreover, often they were not students, but also young professionals from Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, Russia. During Perestroika times the geography of «Molodist» expanded. Competition program now included films from the Baltic states, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and German filmmakers.
Notable is the fact that the festival always focused its attention on the new cinematographic trends. In 1989 for the first time in USSR Film Festival «Molodist» presented production of Moscow and Leningrad “parallel cinematograph”. These were experimental films, which were shot on the narrow-gauged film. The works of Maksim Pezhemskiy, brothers Aleinikov, Eugeny Ufit as a result of this film exhibition caused a fierce dispute about the development trends of new cinematograph.

After the USSR collapse and with the formation of the new independent country the new development opportunities appeared. In 1993 FIAPF officially registered «Molodist» as a specialized International Festival, which activity completely corresponds with international standards. Since that time «Molodist» grew into one of the most important events in Central and Eastern Europe.

Festival’s competition program consists of sections of student films, first professional short films and first full-feature fiction films. That reflects the task of the Festival to see the evolution of competitors and follow their activities after their graduation.
In different years «Molodist» screened the debuts of such successive European directors as – Gaspar Noe, Tom Tykwer, Danny Boyle, Laurent Bouhnik, Aleksey Balabanov, Shona Auerbach, Denis Evstigneev, Jacques Audiard, Dmitriy Meskhiev, Valeriy Todorovskiy, Francois Ozon, Stephen Daldry, Sergiy Maslobojschikov, Bilge Geyran, Bruno Dumont and many others.

«Molodist» was the first step for lots of future prominent filmmakers, who became the prizewinners of leading film festival.
The festival also presents a vast non-competition program that include Ukrainian panorama, Festival of Festivals, National cinema programs, Retrospectives of film schools and prominent filmmakers.
In 1997 lifetime-achievement award was established, that proves the fact that «Molodist» is the kind of festival that unites not only young filmmakers, but also well-known artists in a great art laboratory, which considered to be a true movie holiday.